Feedback/SuggestionsSticky

If you want to give some general feedback, or suggest something, please do so here.

In regards to feedback, please try and be constructive. Saying "your game is too hard, dude!" doesn't help me in maybe making it easier to play. However, saying "It's hard for me to see sometimes what hit me and that is really frustrating." is much better, because here I can at least understand which area of the game makes it too hard to play.

Cool game. There are only two things I think would improve the game graetly:

-Don't take ALL of the XP from the player once he gets hit. It is really frustrating. I sugguest only restting the progress of one level. That means if you reached level two you will stay level two for the rest of the run. This would probably buff the drones alot, so i sugguest nerfing them a bit. And you could add more upgrades to motivaze better players.

I'll keep an eye on the XP thing, because changing would also change a lot of other things, since your score multiplier as well as your healing depend on it. At the same time, I'm fully aware of how punishing it can be, so I'll have to see if I can make it more forgiving without making the whole system useless.In regards to the roll: There should be no lag at all, because the roll can interupted at any time. At least that's what it's supposed to do.

1. It seems that some sound effects are distored. Like a "crunch"-effekt. Not sure if this is wanted, but for my ears it sounds like to much... if the sound is clipping because it is too loud.

2. When I get hit and fall into spikes, I do not die instantly (because I'm invincible for a short time). How about keeping the charakter alive, if he is standing "in the spikes" (similar to the way it works in the first Prince of Persia or first Tomb Raider... walking through the spikes doesn't hurt; running or falling into is a different thing. The total opposite would be "getting hit and being invincible, however spikes will kill you always". :)

3. If I move the main window to another position (since I like to have other stuff available as well), it jumps back to the centre after a game (when the main screen appears again).

Problem with your suggestion is that it would lead to players sometimes being stuck. For example if they fall down a deep spike pit, while being invincible and then not dying, because they didn't fall onto the spikes.

The invincibilty is needed though, because of situations like the one in the picture below. If invincibility wouldn't count on spikes, you might get knocked back into some spikes and then die instantly, which feels really awful.

Problem with your suggestion is that it would lead to players sometimes being stuck. For example if they fall down a deep spike pit, while being invincible and then not dying, because they didn't fall onto the spikes.

The invincibilty is needed though, because of situations like the one in the picture below. If invincibility wouldn't count on spikes, you might get knocked back into some spikes and then die instantly, which feels really awful.

1. Shadows: Instead of using fading shadows, use only 3 different greyish to black colors and use these as tiles for the shadows (e.g. for the top tile of ladders) to keep the pixelart a little more consistent. This tutorial might help to show what I mean:

2. I got to the "fire end-boss" for the first time. Is it true, that the treadmill is changing directions? If yes, the animation of the treatmill should clearly indicate the direction through animation AND there should be a two second indicator, that the direction will change soon (flashing maybe?).

The direction of the conveyor belt in the bossfight does change, but only when you run into its body. I reverse the direction there for a moment to make sure, that you're not getting pushed into it even further.

One general thing in regards to Pixelart: I'm grateful about your suggestions, however I don't have the time to go through all the sprites that I already did. So please don't be dissapointed, when you're not going to see any improvements on that end. I'll try to keep your suggestions in mind, when it comes to any sprites that I still have to do, but that's probably going to be it (barring some minor corrections here and there).

I still appreciate the feedback though, because there will be a game after that.

I feel like the "Eye"/Neon bossfight is kinda boring and too much waiting. Maybe it could be mixed up by taking away the invincibility and instead make the boss move up and down. It would make the fight feel less like waiting and would make it more interesting by adding another thing to take into account.

I've been trying to think of a summary of my experience for like 15
minutes, so instead I'll jump straight into some bullet points. This is on
the Steam version, on Windows 10.

The underwater pipes
that blast you up could use some visual indication that they're
"charging"--I tried jumping off of them prematurely, repeatedly missing the platform I needed to get to, and didn't realize
you had to sit still on them. Maybe some sort of swirly bubble effect?

The
cheats menu text is pretty hard to see against the dark background, and
there's no indication of what options you've selected, which sucks if
you don't remember what things you had on. Also, the colored bars are a
little distracting, IMO? Maybe they could be slowed down a bit.

The little red bots that pop out of the tiny blue floor capsules seem a little unfair; they only give you a tiny fraction of a second's warning before they fire at you, which is not really enough time to react. What's more, it's impossible to predict when they'll actually pop up, since they only try to fire when you're in range. (And sometimes not even that--there's a bit at the end of one ice level where I climb up a ladder at the right end of the screen, and I need to shoot a turret to my left next to a teleporter, but even hovering near the top of the ladder won't make it shoot at me; I have to climb all the way up for it to eventually notice me, and now I have to resort to jumping to dodge it, instead of ducking down the ladder.) It seems like my only recourse here is to just spam bullets at them until they eventually pop up and get destroyed, which can suck if unlimited ammo is off.

Speaking of ladders, the climbing speed feels a bit slow to me. After doing the various ladder parkour sections multiple times, they become boring and almost lethargic-feeling, as I spend a lot of time holding Up and waiting until I get high enough.

I enjoyed the game without cheats, but after a good deal of gameplay I tested out a damage multiplier, then decided to just plow through the game and disabled my own damage and maxed out my damage multiplier. However, all this time I had only gotten to Level 2 a few times, and although I reached it more often now, I still only hit Level 3 once or twice. I found myself wishing for a cheat to modify how much of your level gets taken off when you take damage, which I might have used in place of a damage multiplier earlier on. Basically, this cheat would only take down part of your level bar when you take damage (think Cave Story), and at its fullest extent would prevent you from losing levels at all.

I never used...what was it, Hyper Blast? I don't even remember the name now ^_^; Basically, reaching Level 2 alone was already fairly infrequent, and I always wanted to hang on to it for as long as possible before I inevitably got hit. I didn't see the need for spending it just to get invulnerability and extra damage for a bit (though maybe I should have?).

Okay, that's enough specific criticisms! In general, I had a lot of fun exploring the levels and blowing up enemies (I really like the artstyle!). Having cheats available without judgement was nice too--I probably would've left the game alone after a while if they weren't around. It's especially satisfying when cheats are on and I can blow up those damn purple ceiling turrets in one hit, and they give off a giant explosion!!

I only found one secret, I think? I wanna find more. In fact, now that I've had a long break, I think I'll go try that again ^_^ I'll try not to accidentally graze a spike 4 bosses in this time...

Found a couple more secrets! And now there are more enemies showing up in some levels, which makes leveling up a fair bit easier. I even hit Level 4 once! One of those secrets I only found by accident, though... (I'd played about 2 hours prior to this.)

The reload time of the shield-throwing enemies seems too long--sometimes I'm just sitting there, waiting for them to throw again so I can hit them.

The reverse-gravity particles could use some more contrast--they're a bit hard to see on gray backgrounds.

Mad props for making the ice platforms catch you at the ends!! Ice physics are much more fun when they're not screwing you over ^^;